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WHY THE RIDICULOUS GIVES PLEASURE
WHY THE RIDICULOUS GIVES PLEASURE warning- this article is old and unedited The Theory of Pleasure. —Among the vexed questions of philosophy none is more interesting than the theory of pleasure. Plato insisted that pleasure was simply a release from pain, and could exist only after the pain had caused annoyance. To say the act which typifies his theory is scratching is to use a figure bold enough to be remembered, and a word which he often employed. Opposed to this gloomy view of life is the theory proposed by Aristotle, which finds its ablest modern exponent in Sir William Hamilton. "Pleasure, " he says, "is the reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded effort of a power of whose energy we are conscious; pain a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exercise of such a power. " Elsewhere he says that "Pleasure is nothing but the concomitant or reflex of the unenforced and unimpeded energy of a faculty or habit, the degree of pleasure being always in proportion to the degree of such energy. " Leibnitz says that systems of philosophy are equally right in what they assert and wrong in what they deny. The theories of Kant and of Hamilton, diverse as they seem, yet agree in this—that pleasure comes from action. "Things won are done, " says Cressida; "joy lies in the doing. " This is true even of the "pure pleasures" of Plato, which Hamilton ignores ; "those from beautiful colors, and from figures, and most of those from odors, and those from sounds, and any objects whose absence is unfelt and painless, while their presence is sensible and productive of pleasure ; " 'which, " to quote from Philebus, "are eteraally and intrinsically beautiful and attended with pleasures of their own to which those of scratching have no resemblance. " Though there be justice in Stuart Mill's remark that Hamilton's definition, of pleasure throws no new light upon it, and in the claim of Mr. Dallas that in "pure pleasure" the main source of enjoyment is less in the consciousness of energy than in the "conceit of special agreement in fitness : " even if we accept Mr. Dallas's theory of exceeding pleasure, "that as the joy of life waxes the consciousness of life wanes ; that as consciousness rises pleasure sets ; that we recognize the presence of our bliss only when the bliss begins to fade, and that the heaven of our existence begins when the consciousness of it passes away, " the pleasure still results from activities, and the only question is as to how far these activities are within the sphere of consciousness. Perception of the Ludicrous. —As the ludicrous arises from suddenly perceiving an incongruity, it is manifest that the pleasure arises from gratification at the possession and the exercise of this perception. Not Universal. —The possession of a humorous perception is by no means universal, and its most remarkable property is, that it is inborn. "It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding, " says Sydney Smith. "It is not in the power of Everyone to taste humor, however he may wish it, " says Laurence Sterne, "it is the gift of God. " We are all familiar with the helpless look of one who lacks perception of the ludicrous, and who peers into our faces to see whether or not what was said last is a joke he ought to laugh at. Nothing annoys one more than to observe the utter want of perception of a joke in some minds. Miss Jackson called, the other day, and spoke of the oppressive heat of last week. "Heat, madam, " I said, "it was so dreadful here that I found nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. " "Take off your flesh and sit in your bones, sir? Oh, Mr. Smith, how could you do that ?" "Nothing more easy, madam ; come and see me next time. " But she ordered her carriage, and evidently thought it a very unorthodox proceeding. —SIMMAY SMITH. A college professor, lecturing on the effect of the wind in Western forests, remarked : "In travelling along the road I sometimes found the logs bound and twisted together to such an extent that a mule could not climb over them, so I went round. " "John, " said a gentleman to his new servant, "did you take that note to Mr. Jones ?" "Yes, sir ; but it didn't do him any good " "How do you know that?" "Because he can't read. " "Mr. Jones can't read ? Why, what do you mean, John ?" "Why, he's blind, blind as a bat. While I was in the room he asked me three times where was my hat, and there it was right on my head in plain sight all the time. " The works of many standard authors abound in passages where through lack of this perception grave issue is taken with statements, the only point of which is their humor. Thus, in a noted rhetoric : But of all kinds the worst is that wherein the words, when construed, are capable of no meaning at all. Such an expression is the following : "There were seven ladles in the company, Everyone prettier than another, " by which it is intended, I suppose, to indicate that they were all very pretty. One prettier implies that there is another lees pretty, but where everyone is prettier there can be none lees, and consequently none more pretty. Such trash is the disgrace of our tongue—CAMPBELL. In a play of Douglas Jerrold an old sailor, attempting to snatch a kiss, gets a box on the ear. "Just my luck, " he exclaims ; "always wrecked on the coral reefs. " When the manager heard the play read he could see no point to this remark, and insisted that it should be struck out. Not to be . Acquired. —Nor can a sense of the humorous be acquired. It must be felt, and instantly, or it vanishes. The moment you seek to fix it, to study it, to analyze it, the virtue has departed. Though you should resolve into its elements every funny thing that had ever happened you might still be blind to the next that occurred, for the humorous is mercurial in its manifestations. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in a seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an opposite tale ; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense or the affinity of their sound ; sometimes it is wrapped up in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude ; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection ; sometimes it is concealed in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense ; sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimics' look or gesture passeth for it ; sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimesa presumptuous bluntness giveth it being ; sometimes it riseth only upon a lucky hitting upon what is strange ; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one hardly knows what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. —Ruutow. Value not Fa, ctitiou8. —It is largely because this sense of humor is unattainable that its possession gives such pleasure. We value most what is hardest to get. But the value of a sense of humor is by no means factitious. Mirth is as innate in the mind as any other original faculty. The absence of it, in individuals or in communities, is a defect ; for there are various forms of imposture which wit, and wit alone, can expose and punish. Without a well- trained capacity to perceive the ludicrous, the health suffers, both of the body and the mind, seriousness dwindles into asceticism, sobriety degenerates into bigotry, and the natural order of things gives way to the vagaries of a distempered imagination. -WHIP Instances of this kind are perhaps most common and most lamentable in those who have to do with sacred subjects. Ozanam, the mathematician, said it was for the Sorbonne to discuss, for the Pope to decide, and for the mathematician to go to heaven in a perpendicular line. In one of the mysteries enacted in Germany, toward the end of the last century, the Creator of the world was represented as an old gentleman in a wig, who groped about in the dark, and after running his head against the pests exclaimed in utter peevishness, "Let there be light, " and there was light— the light of a tallow candle. So in a grave sermon, Francis Meres (the same to whom we are indebted for the earliest critical mention of Shakespeare) made out addition and multiplication to be God's arithmetic, because when he had made Adam and Eve he caused them to increase and multiply, but subtraction and division to be the devil's arithmetic, because the arch enemy subtracted Delilah from Samson and divided Michal from David. From absurdities like these the slightest sense of the ludicrous would protect a reverent mind. "In every condition of man it is play, and play alone, that makes him complete, " says Schiller. "Humor is the harmony of the heart, " says Douglas Jerrold. "Even genius and philanthropy, " to quote again from Whipple, "are incomplete without they are accompanied by some sense of the ludicrous, for an extreme sensitiveness to the evil and misery of society becomes a maddening torture if not modified by a feeling of the humorous, and urges its subjects into morbid exaggeration of life's dark side. " Not to be Obtruded. —It should be noted that those in whom the sense of humor is keenest often display it least. When a man explains his understanding of a joke his enjoyment of it is superficial. Such a one is so impatient to obtrude his appreciation of the funny that he never permits the funny fully to develop itself. The true humorist is never in a hurry. If you bungle in telling a story familiar to him he does not interrupt you, even to hint that he has heard it before, but lets you blunder on to the conclusion, finding it doubly ludicrous that you suppose he is laughing at the story, while in fact he is laughing at you. A common incident is the first visit of the beardless boy to the barber's shop. In all these stories the barber pkrades his facetiousness. For instance, he lathers his customer's 'face and then sits down to read the morning newspaper. "What are you waiting for ? " asks the boy ; and the barber replies : "Waiting for your beard to grow. " Now, the barber spoils the joke by obtruding his own smartness. The true humorist would lather and shave the smooth face as if it were a Leadville miner's ; would inquire if the razor took hold well, and if all the beard should be removed or a small goatee left to sort of balance the moustache, like ; and all so deftly and imperturbably that the boy would pay his bill with the air of a veteran, and swagger off like a drum-major. In a recently published book of memoirs we are told that something in the appearance of Professor Buttmann, the profound Greek scholar, irresistibly impressed Everyone he met with the idea that he was a barber. Passing along the street one day he was hailed from an upper window by someone to him unknown, who beckoned to him to ascend ; and when the wise man entered commanded curtly : "Cut my hair. " The professor meekly obeyed, and had about half concluded the operation when the victim, looking into the glass, discovered that one side of his head had been reduced to baldness, while the other looked as if it had been gnawed by an absent- minded mule. "Merciful Heaven ! " he yelled, "you don't know how to cut hair. " "You did not ask me whether I did or not ; I am Professor Buttmann, " and with a low bow the learned man departed. He was a true humorist. Enjoyed in Proportion to Difieulty. Like all our other powers, the faculty of appreciating the funny is enjoyed in proportion to the difficulties it encounters. There is most zest in the game of chess that we barely win, and that is to us the funniest joke which we barely see and our neighbors do not see at all. One who has addressed different audiences knows how impossible it is to predict the reception a certain anecdote will receive. Told precisely alike in three different places, one audience will laugh till the tears come, another will sit stolid because it fails to see the point, and the third will sneer because it sees the point too easily. It must be confessed that one must listen to many stories to find a point new enough to occasion the surprise which is the chief element of the ludicrous. Dr. Johnson projected a work "to show how small a quantity of real fiction there is in the world and that the same images, with very few variations, have served all authors who have ever written. " Certainly a bare dozen would make up a majority of the paragraphs gleaned for in the funny columns of our newspapers. It would be worth the student's while to count the proportion which relate to the mother-in-law, to big feet, to doctors killing their patients, to the poor mule that won't work both ways, and to the servant-girl who kindled a fire with naphtha and nothing has benzine of her since. Conventional Jokes. —Not only are a majority of jokes built on a few dummy ideas, but the ideas themselves are only conventionally funny, so that the laugh is not at the idea, but at some peculiarity in the expression. For instance, the world has agreed to smile when it is suggested that a doctor kills his patients. As long ago as when Martial wrote this was an accepted joke, and one of his epigrams may be thus translated : A doctor lately was a captain made; It is a change of titles, not of trade. Now the ways in which this assumption may be suggested are numberless. A physician's wife looking out of the window sees her husband in a funeral procession. "I do wish he would not go to the grave, " she complains, "it; looks so like a tailor carrying home his work. " Two teams are traveling along a lonely road. One tries in vain to pass the other, and the driver calls out, "Say, man, what's your business ?" "I am a physician, sir, " replies the other stiffly. "All right, then, you ought to keep ahead ; I carry coffins. " A practitioner finds a lady reading "Twelfth Night, " and asks : "When Shakespeare wrote about Patience on a Monument did he mean doctors' patients?" "No, " is the reply ; "you don't find doctors' patients on monuments, but under them. " The essence of the ludicrous is incongruity, and in the best jokes the incongruity lies in the ideas. But here the main incongruity lies in assuming that doctors, whose business it is to cure patients, really kill them. In this there is no longer any novelty, and therefore whatever is funny must come from the particular form of expression. The novelty of expression in anecdotes like these is largely based upon punning. The jokes are mere twistings of words, artificial, and at the best but dexterous. But with the man deficient in humor they are favorites, because he can commit them to memory and remember to laugh at them whenever they are dressed up and trotted out. Especially grateful to such a mind is the joke that derives all its humor from frequent repetition. In the play of the "Mighty Dollar" the persistent misuse of capital letters is _regarded as a "K. G. "—capital joke" by a large majority. " American humor is characterized by what may be termed the omission of the major premise. The logicians resolve every judgment into a syllogism. Thus, if we conclude that a heavy fall of snow is a blessing because it provides poor people with work in shoveling off sidewalks, our entire thought is this : Major premise—Whatever provides poor people with work is a blessing. Minor premise—Such a snow provides poor people with work. Conclusion—Therefore such a snow is a blessing. Now, we do not usually stop to express the major premise, but go at once from the minor to the conclusion. A syllogism with one of the premises omitted is called an enthymeme, and the word is worth remembering because it describes it exactly to call the typical joke of the period an enthymeme. "Will the boy who threw that red pepper on the stove come forward and get a nice book ?" asked an Iowa Sunday-school six perintendenk with a bland smile. But the boy never stirred. He was a far- seeing boy. Now there is a capital enthymeme. The major premise is that if the boy had come up he would have got walloped ; but that is left to the imagination, being, in fact, implied in the pepper. A Western coroner's jury brought in a verdict that the deceased came to his death from calling Bill Jones a liar. A Sharon man stole a peck of dahlia-roots under the impression that they were sweet-potatoes. He felt the deception keenly. A New Fairfield man who failed to get a thirty-cent pineapple for a quarter of a dollar wanted to know whether we were breathing the pure air of freedom or being strangled by the fetid fumes of a foreign despotism. The store-keeper said those were the only pine-apples he had. A man from Maine, who had never paid more than twenty-five cents to see an entertainment, went to a New York theatre where the play was "The Forty Thieves, " and was charged a dollar and a half for a ticket. Handing the pasteboard back, he remarked, "Keep it, mister ; I don't want to see the other thirty-nine. " A Milford resident came to New Haven for a spree. He had it. In a drunken stupor he stumbled into the Fair Haven rolling-mill, where he awoke at night to see molten iron glaring, bright sparks flying, laborers gliding to and fro in the lurid flame, and horrible shadows. As he rubbed his eyes a workman asked him where he came from. He gasped : "When I was on earth I lived in New Milford. " In this sort of anecdotes it is assumed that the bearer's mind is bright and quick enough to supply the missing connection. The hearer is gratified by this confidence, and by his ability to justify it, and would resent your thinking it necessary even to hint, "This is a goak. —A. Ward. " While this omission of the connection adds to the pleasure of those able to supply it, unfortunately it produces confusion or blankness in the minds of those who are unable to do so. The great success of Artemas Ward's career was his lecture on Utah, delivered in Egyptian Hall, London. After a prologue, intended, as the programme stated, to show what a good education the lecturer had, Artemas went on to inform his audience that it was an error to call Salt Lake City the City of the Plain, as some of the women were really very pretty. The Mormon's religion, he said, was singular, but his wives were plural. The "Lady of Lyons" was produced at the Mormon theater, but failed to satisfy the audience because there was only one Pauline in it, and it seemed ridiculous to make so much fuss over a single woman. The play was revised at once and presented the next evening with fifteen Panlines in the cast, whereupon it became a great success. "Brigham Young, " he said, "is an indulgent father and a numerous husband. He has two hundred wives. Just think of that ! Oblige me by thinking of that. Two hundred souls with but a single thought, two hundred hearts that beat as one. He loves not wisely but two hundred well. He is dreadfully married. He is the most married man I ever saw in my life. I saw his mother- in-law when I was there. I can't tell you exactly how many there is of her, but it is a good deal. It strikes me that one mother-in- law is about enough to have in the family—unless you are fond of excitement. A few days before my arrival Brigham Young was married again to a young and really pretty girl. He told me confidentially that he shouldn't get married any more. He says that all he wants now is to live on in peace for the remainder of his days, and to have his dying pillow soothed by the loving hands of his family. Well—that's all right—I suppose ; but if he has his dying pillow soothed by the loving hands of all his family, he'll have to go out of doors to die. " Robert Lowe heard this lecture, and laughed heartily all the evening. John Bright sat stolid, listening with grave attention, and afterward remarked : "I must say I can't see what people find to enjoy in this lecture. The information is meager, and is presented in a desultory, disconnected manner. In fact, I can't help seriously questioning some of his statements. " category:humor